Flaawsome Talk with Kjersti Flaa - Ep 12： This REALLY happened at one of Hollywood's Biggest Animation Studios !!!

00:00:00.000 I froze. I couldn't move and everybody froze in the room and I finally able to like manage to pull

00:00:06.540 my shorts and just basically I ran out of the room. This happens most unexpected place, a place

00:00:14.680 you make children movies. Hi and welcome to Flossom Talk the podcast. I am Shashli Flo and here in my

00:00:26.880 podcast I talk about other things that I usually talk about on my YouTube channel where I post

00:00:31.640 things every single day mostly about Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni's legal drama but here on my

00:00:36.920 podcast I do talk about other things and sometimes I talk about serious things which I will talk about

00:00:42.760 today with a very special guest. Someone contacted me in LA a little while back and they said you know

00:00:49.700 I have this story for you. This person who experienced something so horrific in Hollywood

00:00:55.700 and this person has never talked about it before. I read the story and I was shocked. I was just

00:01:03.200 so disgusted and I just could not believe what I was reading and the thing is I was assuming that

00:01:11.040 this happened to a woman and I didn't realize it actually had happened to a man and when this person

00:01:17.020 told me that he wanted to come here on my channel and tell his story I was so honored by that and I

00:01:25.140 hope you guys will listen to his entire story and share some love in the comment section because I

00:01:31.740 think it's amazing that he found the strength to talk about this and do it here in this amazing

00:01:38.280 community. Yes if you're watching on YouTube you can comment below if you are listening on other

00:01:45.160 podcasts please share and like and subscribe if you haven't and yes please welcome Kam. Thank you so

00:01:53.940 much for being here on Flossom Talk and telling your story which is a very disturbing story but we're

00:02:00.440 going to start talking about something a little nicer. We're going to start talking about how you got

00:02:05.700 into Hollywood because that's kind of a crazy story. It is and thank you for inviting me. I used to live in

00:02:14.940 Arkansas. I started waiting tables at this place called Jackson Suzanne's. It was a French restaurant

00:02:21.820 and when Chef moved to California to Malibu to work on this at this restaurant called Splash

00:02:30.360 he said you want to come over? I said oh yeah. So I went there during 80s, mid 80s and Johnny Carson

00:02:43.260 who was one of our customers, regulars, who almost came every other night and I had a habit of drawing.

00:02:55.740 Drawing of I love drawing Duffy Duck. I love drawing sketches of people making him caricatures of them.

00:03:03.660 So one night Johnny's wife left for the bathroom and then we were chatting and honestly he was he had some alcohol

00:03:15.660 and he saw those sketches and he goes like what are you doing here? You should be working at Disney.

00:03:23.180 And I go oh yeah right okay. Whatever. I didn't make anything big about it and it's like but when time passed I

00:03:36.300 started thinking about it. I said maybe I should at least find out where Disney was. I didn't even know where Disney

00:03:43.180 Studios are and um so I looked up the yellow pages they didn't have Google back then um and I got their

00:03:53.820 number I called them up find out where they were at Flower Street in Glendale and I hopped in my

00:04:03.020 uh Volkswagen Bug and got all my um sketches in a bag not even a portfolio and I went there and there was a

00:04:17.340 lady named Dee at the reception and I said well I have all these sketches and I want to work at Disney

00:04:26.220 and I placed the sketches on the counter and she kind of laughed at me and she goes well do you have a

00:04:34.860 phone number you can leave with us in case we like your sketches and I said oh yeah I left my number 0.53

00:04:42.300 and I went back to my car and I said this was stupid and uh two weeks went by I got a call from them

00:04:52.300 um guy named Bill Matthews he was in charge of the training programs there and he said that they 0.92

00:05:01.020 thought I had talent and uh he said um they wanted me to go there's the school called CalArts California

00:05:12.460 Institute of the Arts in Valencia I did that for three weeks uh three months and then I came back and

00:05:20.940 I presented my portfolio to them and I got it I became a story trainee um Lion King uh that was my first

00:05:36.620 picture I worked on they moved me to another picture called Pocahontas I don't know if you are familiar with

00:05:44.700 yeah and I became a story artist there um I worked on Hercules I worked on Kingdom of the Sun

00:05:54.380 anyhow so I worked there 15 years altogether 15 years at Disney and that was your like dream job

00:06:01.180 would you say that was a dream job for you I loved working there it wasn't just I never saw it as a job

00:06:08.860 Disney was I thought like I was I was playing and getting paid for it it wasn't as business like

00:06:16.540 like it like it is now it was a great environment great people to work with I would say nothing bad

00:06:24.300 about them I mean yeah they may say you know hey Disney's cheap yeah they're a little bit cheap

00:06:29.740 but it's okay um they give you a lot of opportunities because like if you work at Disney everyone respects

00:06:38.700 you everyone knows your name that's the placket I got like you know for 10 years oh wow I worked at

00:06:46.540 Sony for 11 years then I worked at DreamWorks for seven years I think and then year and a half at

00:06:55.900 Warner Brothers all together four studios yeah so you know the studios you got to know I do know the

00:07:03.500 yeah I knew though the big buddies and then you did have an experience that changed everything yeah you

00:07:10.860 know the the um if you ask me what happened like I would say summarize the whole thing I would say

00:07:19.180 I had a dream came through and someone came and crushed it and took it away from me

00:07:29.420 that's that's what happened basically um

00:07:35.420 I was such an outgoing person I was um people always told me like you know

00:07:42.140 Khan always brings good ideas in meetings in brainstorm meetings even like you know

00:07:49.340 when we go to lunches without with my colleagues we would discuss the movie we're working on and

00:07:56.140 story problems I I love that you know because it wasn't a job it was again like it was part of my life

00:08:03.500 I didn't like you know go home and and thought okay you know what I've done my job today

00:08:09.660 I took the whole thing with me in the middle of the night I was cold my friend and talk about like

00:08:15.900 well we can do this here we can do that there it was like that um so after the incident um

00:08:29.580 I I stopped um going out I stopped uh I try not to go to meetings I try not to

00:08:38.300 go to lunches anymore I start working from home um I I I was very hesitant to talk

00:08:52.460 about my ideas I didn't even bring them up sorry I just have to jump in here to say thank you so much

00:08:59.820 to the sponsor of this video Surfshark now if you anything like me your entire life runs online from

00:09:06.540 emails to video uploads to deep dives into Hollywood lawsuits and some of those searches as you can

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00:10:01.260 not totally sold there's a 30-day money-back guarantee go to surfshark.com slash flaw my last name

00:10:09.820 f-l-a-a or use code flaw while you're checking out f-l-a-a and get four extra months of Surfshark

00:10:18.700 VPN you can find the link in my description thanks again to Surfshark and now back to Khan's story so

00:10:26.620 can you can you can you kind of go I know this is hard for you to talk about but can you go through

00:10:31.340 that day what actually happened to you uh that changed everything that changed your life that

00:10:37.900 changed the way you look at life and and work in and everything well okay we have I need to first talk

00:10:47.340 about like how we do our jobs like I I'm given scene which is script pages um that's what we call lounge

00:10:59.420 the director and uh PA usually taking notes they launch me um on the pages of the sequence um we talk

00:11:13.340 about it and director says this is what I want from the scene um and then I start board it um and we don't

00:11:23.100 just uh like in live action when they board they usually think about the staging but we also think

00:11:31.180 about acting staging everything sometimes dialogue we add dialogue we take out dialogue uh we kind of make

00:11:39.180 the movie on storyboards honestly so every time we finish the storyboarding process like we have to pitch

00:11:47.500 it to directors and get their notes and the way we pitch usually we uh upload it on a uh server

00:11:57.500 the the studio server and then um we pitch it on the big screen through our computers

00:12:05.820 so everybody else sits as i pitch everybody else lines up and sits behind me and after pitch i get up on

00:12:15.420 and i face them i turn around and face them standing up in front of the um the big screen and we go

00:12:25.740 because we have to go through shot by shot with the directors their notes um so basically that day

00:12:33.420 that's what happened i pitched the scene given scene both directors were there we had a

00:12:40.860 main director and a co-director we also had the head of story in the room we had the producer in the room

00:12:48.700 along with um the the line producer we had the um the layout head of layout we have the department heads

00:13:01.820 they're all there because they're all there because if there's any change in the story they have to know

00:13:06.940 uh they have to then adjust their um backgrounds and whatever um so um there were several people i would say about

00:13:20.060 more than 10 people in the room including one person was joining us from um zoom on a screen

00:13:29.820 a different screen a different screen on my back um and from vermont a story artist

00:13:40.220 so i finish pitching the scene then i turn around and get up face the director and others

00:13:47.900 and i noticed the the director got up and left his seat and start moving towards me and past me

00:14:00.540 i thought he was gonna um move the screen to see different shots he he probably started oh he saw

00:14:10.940 something he wants to see that and before i had a chance to turn around um

00:14:19.500 i felt two hands grabbing my shorts and forcefully you know pulled them down all the way everything

00:14:29.660 everything um i was i was like i i froze i couldn't move and everybody froze in the room

00:14:44.700 except him he was laughing in my back

00:14:49.500 and i i i was going like i didn't understand what was going on and i was in shock i was

00:14:59.980 so you were done you were standing there basically naked in front of all these people exactly

00:15:07.420 um co-director was a feet away from me sitting i mean i catch his eyes and they he was doing this

00:15:16.940 and i finally able to like managed to pull my shorts and just basically i ran out of the room

00:15:27.740 went back to my office i could hear his laugh um as i was leaving was anyone else laughing no no

00:15:38.380 whole room was frozen um i went to back to my office i think it was maybe less than a minute

00:15:50.940 uh both co-director not the director who did it co-director and head of story came to my room and

00:15:58.380 and and told me to go to hr you have to go to the hr con i i was just sitting there

00:16:09.980 sudden disbelief and shock um after like maybe five minutes and all this time they were saying let's go

00:16:22.060 we'll come with you just go to hr um producer came in the room and this is what he said to me he said

00:16:34.540 con this was horrible um i'm so sorry this happened can i bring the director in to apologize from you

00:16:45.740 wow um i just looked at him i didn't answer i didn't say anything he left the room

00:16:59.100 and he came back with the director and director was

00:17:04.940 i mean i i don't think he knew what he did he goes con i'm sorry man i was just it was a joke i thought

00:17:18.220 it was a good joke that's what he told me it but but it was a joke oh i want to tell him like you know

00:17:25.660 i can't repeat the joke this time i will pull you out your shorts in front of you yeah but um

00:17:32.620 um um but that uh right there told me i i know a lot of people says like you know why didn't you go to

00:17:43.260 hr why didn't you yeah all this years well i had that was a message if they wanted because producer

00:17:59.180 is the supervisor in the in the room at that point and you know we took these um we watched these videos

00:18:08.220 it was it's about government guidelines and rules in the workplace um so you have any training you have

00:18:16.860 to do training and once a year every year and you have to pass if you can't pass they make you take it

00:18:23.420 again and again until you pass you don't you're out you cannot work in this studio and it's not just

00:18:30.700 studios it's um it could be a home depot you have to have that uh it could be um lawn supermarket you have

00:18:41.740 to have to have that you know um so and i when i watched that video um i know i'm so sure and it is

00:18:54.060 that way i know because i took that video so many times it says if the supervisor witnesses a a

00:19:03.660 harassment or assault they have to report no matter victim is want to report it or not that's not the

00:19:15.740 thing they have to report it and they witnessed it yes so it's not like they have to take your word for

00:19:23.580 it they were there and they saw what happened right and they didn't do anything oh well they did

00:19:30.860 okay he came to my room and he said can you accept the apology basically he was saying

00:19:39.260 let's that's making it even worse don't you think that made it worse in my exactly that would make

00:19:45.420 it worse because that's even more like i don't know intimidating or you're like in still in shock

00:19:52.780 in such a horrible place like he was you know taking advantage of you in front of all these people

00:20:01.020 and then yeah he says it's a joke that's the that's the apology yeah he thought it was a joke and

00:20:10.620 and the producer instead of going to hr he's telling me forget about this con he did he said that to you

00:20:19.100 well he didn't say it that that way but he said can i bring him in and apologize and basically he's saying

00:20:28.460 don't and then and then we're done

00:20:30.860 that's what he was suggesting yeah yeah that's all that he needed to do was apologize and then

00:20:36.860 everyone could just move on yes nothing happened we're a happy family you know um which makes me

00:20:44.540 think i i cannot you know i cannot prove this but i cannot imagine because he came into my room

00:20:55.980 maybe five six minutes later um not right away like the co-director and and the head of story

00:21:04.220 put these who came into my into my room five or six minutes later i guarantee you he called

00:21:12.140 someone up higher and discuss what happened i cannot true it but i think that was his orders

00:21:23.020 okay whatever you do make this go away honestly and and i that's what i got the message was

00:21:33.420 just accept the apology and let's move on because he could have come to my room and said come

00:21:46.140 i'm terribly sorry but don't worry i'm going to hr yeah if you can come with me it'll be great if not

00:21:53.180 i will report this that's what he should have done so no one ended up reporting this no no one and honestly

00:22:04.860 when i saw and felt you know the producer is is not backing me he said he's telling me to basically accept the apology

00:22:18.940 i said i want to keep my job and i don't want to look like a troublemaker because i understood this is

00:22:31.020 this is how i could keep my job and that's sorry go ahead but do you think do you think that they would

00:22:41.180 you know ask you to leave whatever if you actually brought it up that that would be a consequence for

00:22:46.620 you or that they maybe would push you out of your job because you know because you actually reported

00:22:53.980 right i don't know that but that's what i thought that's that's that's the impression i got because

00:23:03.500 um again as i said i didn't see the producers telling me i'm going to report this age to hr this is

00:23:14.380 not acceptable behavior instead he was saying let's just take just take the apology and

00:23:26.300 they not they did not fire the director you know director that is the most shocking part to me i have

00:23:34.140 to say i mean of course what he did is so shocking but that that they actually kept him and he's still

00:23:41.260 working is he still working there no um and he worked there well over a year after you know the

00:23:48.140 incident so it wasn't because of you anything that happened to you no no no not at all he got a better

00:23:55.740 offer from another studio and he moved on to that other studio um that was another thing that

00:24:07.740 thing that gets to me is that my life went downwards but these guys they kept their you know the one of them is still producing

00:24:23.180 in major hollywood studio and the other one is the director is going around doing his one man

00:24:33.260 piano shows um and he does book signings

00:24:40.380 can you imagine he wrote a book about how to make your life better he did oh yeah

00:24:45.980 yeah if you um if you google him up you can see

00:24:54.380 yeah he's i mean um i don't think his wife his wife knows what he did i don't think these kids knows

00:25:02.620 what he did but um so this is about is it 10 years ago now it it was in 2016.

00:25:10.540 okay so nine years ago and when after this happened uh you kind of stopped going into

00:25:19.580 work and started working from home and started isolating yourself well in my mind this is what

00:25:26.860 i was thinking everyone knows in the studio what happened to me i everyone knows well that's what i was

00:25:36.700 thinking that's oh yes yeah okay i get it yeah because you know what yeah people leave the room they start

00:25:43.900 talking yeah you know and and i i thought like you know when i go to studio everyone's eyes out of me

00:25:53.900 and i thought i was a joke of the town and i i didn't want to see face that and

00:26:02.700 i i i i try to not to go to meetings um and i you know it's it's funny when i receive a call

00:26:16.380 from a colleague i used to like jump on the call and we would discuss i couldn't even answer the calls

00:26:25.260 i didn't want to even talk to them it's um you know everything i love doing became a burden to me

00:26:38.220 it was a it was hard and it still is i mean um did you yeah did you get depressed or like anxiety

00:26:47.500 social anxiety yeah as a matter of fact that's what it was i think you know i didn't want to be

00:26:55.180 around a lot of people and i still don't um oh yeah yeah oh my god sorry this is such a horrible

00:27:07.660 story i mean when i spoke to you because we did speak on the phone before this interview and i spoke

00:27:12.300 to you i was just in disbelief i was like how can anyone first of all how can anyone just do such

00:27:19.100 a horrible thing to someone and then he was a grown man and then how can he just get away with it

00:27:25.420 and how can people just stand there and watch and do nothing i mean yeah yeah it is uh so disturbing

00:27:36.540 you know if if anything comes out of this i would really love to have

00:27:46.460 some sort of like you know awareness this this happens in the most unexpected place a place you make

00:27:58.060 children movies yeah movies for kids studio is basically okay with it i don't buy at all the

00:28:08.460 studio didn't know about it they knew about it of course i mean you know like there were so many

00:28:15.180 witnesses watching this do you know if this man did anything similar to other people have you heard any

00:28:22.460 stories no i didn't honestly but um maybe i was an easy target for him i don't know well i was like

00:28:31.580 now i'm 66 i was like 56 years old and i'm not even your friend you know um i had no relationship

00:28:41.900 with him at all outside of work you know um i never gave him any reason to like he could do that to me

00:28:54.220 i mean there is no reason for anyone ever to do that to anyone i know i mean it's so absurd to me this man

00:29:01.420 is so sick he's like he is so sick and he got away with it i really hope that i have to make your lives 0.94

00:29:12.860 better i feel like first of all i have to say that i'm so proud of you for coming out here and talking

00:29:19.820 about it now and i i really think that you know it can help a lot of others and i think around especially

00:29:25.340 for men there's even more stigma around this and actually speaking up and experiencing something

00:29:31.340 like this and in the workplace and just like because for us i mean i've never experienced

00:29:37.500 something like that at all and to just kind of understand the mindset of what happens to you when

00:29:43.660 you experience something like this like everyone would say like you said why didn't you go to a jar

00:29:48.380 why didn't you report it instantly and then probably that makes you feel even more guilt around

00:29:54.300 it and start thinking did i invite him like you were just saying you know he wasn't my friend

00:29:58.620 i didn't you know i didn't deserve this why did this happen to me and all those questions that you

00:30:06.540 know and i think it's so important to talk about these things um yeah i really applaud you doing that

00:30:14.220 uh shasti it's by the way i learned your name yeah so it's so good well so it's very easy to say you

00:30:22.620 know go go go to your child speak up blah blah blah well if if it happens to you it's not that easy

00:30:31.500 i didn't want to even think about it i just but also like you know you're working and you still have a job

00:30:39.180 you don't want to stir the pot and go

00:30:42.220 you don't know how other people other studios will react because let's say i have a there's a

00:30:52.300 director who worked with me in the others in another studio and who wants me to work with him in his new

00:31:01.180 movie that he's making but studio can't say oh he's troubled yeah they can't say that you know because

00:31:11.340 he went to hr he did you know you never know and and when you're working you want to protect yourself

00:31:21.500 and that's what i did and um but then also thinking about it i never had a time

00:31:30.140 to think through because i was always busy well maybe i chose to be busy also like work

00:31:39.100 so i forget about it but after i retired it's like i had all the time i and i i had time to

00:31:49.100 process the whole thing and and really understand what happened to me

00:31:55.740 you know um and what kind of damage it created on me it's now i'm realizing that it's like

00:32:07.420 i live in my own prison basically in a way have you have you now taken any steps to get uh some justice

00:32:17.420 for this are you did you ever think about that like you know legal actions against them

00:32:23.180 yeah yeah i'm i'm thinking about it i well i have a lawyer but i want to wait i want to see what's

00:32:31.740 you know this was a good this is good actually let's see what this creates i mean i want them to

00:32:40.220 to acknowledge what they did is wrong number one and make sure they don't do it again

00:32:48.380 why do you why do you have people watch those videos um several hours

00:32:56.860 the training yeah and then take tests and pass those tests if they don't watch them again watch 0.97

00:33:04.940 those videos again and then allow this kind of i'm sorry to say this is where shit happened 0.69

00:33:11.500 you know what it is it's in the little bit of in hollywood culture i think it's like we're untouchable

00:33:20.060 you know and i feel like i've been talking about so much here on this channel as well you know how

00:33:26.940 there's so many cowards out there and i think people are so afraid of losing their jobs for speaking up and

00:33:32.860 most of the time it feels like it doesn't really you know it's it doesn't benefit you in any way if

00:33:41.180 you actually speak up and that's probably you know like you were saying that you were afraid that you

00:33:47.020 will lose your job and that people wouldn't be wanting to hire you again and i think these are the

00:33:52.140 same things that you hear from women that have experienced things like this that they don't want to stand 0.94

00:33:56.780 up and talk about it because they're afraid and um anyways yeah but i'm so so so honored that you

00:34:06.460 wanted to talk about it here and i really hope that something good will come out of this for you

00:34:12.940 maybe you write a book about it and you know maybe yeah who knows we're gonna make it we make a movie about

00:34:19.900 this yeah yeah they all claim like you know um they do these big benefits and they they always claim

00:34:30.220 how they are behind like you know um what's it the she movement um me too me too movement

00:34:41.820 and how they're like you know black lives matter movement they're behind and then turn around do this

00:34:47.340 kind of stuff yeah don't don't do that you know be honest you know um the hypocrisy yes honestly

00:34:57.660 that's like that's too much and in this day and age stop it man you're a grown-up yeah be a grown-up

00:35:07.100 it's it's cowardly you know what the the way the producer that day and what the director did to me

00:35:17.020 it's cowardly it's it's it's it's i don't think a strong person would do those things of course i 0.99

00:35:25.340 mean you know it's a lot of insecurities is a lot of being a coward being a complete jerk and a narcissist 0.96

00:35:33.340 and an yeah basically he was thinking like you know i'm an actor and um i have shows and um 0.99

00:35:44.700 i'm the director here and he's nothing i can do anything i want to him that's what he was thinking

00:35:56.300 and the producer was thinking like oh you know what i gotta keep my job so i gotta make sure

00:36:04.780 this this doesn't blow up on our faces you know yeah there's more environment yeah i know it really

00:36:16.140 sounds like that anyways count it was so nice to talk to you and i really appreciate your honesty and

00:36:22.540 openness and everything and i'm sure all the viewers here are really going to appreciate to hear your story

00:36:29.180 as well and it's so important to get these stories out there so thank you really thank you thank you

00:36:34.540 for doing this and um yeah i hope you get enough strength back to enjoy life again and that's something

00:36:42.140 good pasta day will come out in the end and uh yeah hopefully thank you thank you thank you thank you

00:36:52.620 thank you so much to khan for coming here and sharing this story i know it wasn't easy for him to talk about

00:36:58.700 this we spoke on the phone before this interview and i have to say i was just shocked i'm still shocked by

00:37:05.820 this i mean i have no words um but as i said i'm so honored that he came here to talk about this and

00:37:12.140 so please share some love in the comment section if you're watching this on youtube or if you're

00:37:16.700 listening on spotify apple amazon uh please share and like and yes if you haven't subscribed yet please

00:37:25.100 do and hit the notification bell on youtube if you're there so you don't miss an episode of my podcast

00:37:29.980 or an episode on my youtube show and again thank you so much for giving khan the chance to tell his

00:37:36.780 story and um yeah we've lost some talk

Flaawsome Talk with Kjersti Flaa - August 15, 2025

Ep 12： This REALLY happened at one of Hollywood's Biggest Animation Studios !!!

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